Astronomy

Our Milky Way Galaxy

This image of our galaxy, the Milky Way, was taken with NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer’s (COBE) Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE). This never-before-seen view shows the Milky Way from an edge-on perspective with the north pole at the top, the south pole at the bottom and the galactic center at the center. The picture combines images obtained at several near-infrared wavelengths. Stars within our galaxy are the dominant source of light at these wavelengths. Even though our solar system is part of the Milky Way, the view looks distant because most of the light comes from the population of stars that are closer to the galactic center than our own Sun.

Andromeda Galaxy, M31

The Andromeda Galaxy, M31, is located 2.3 million light years away, making it the nearest major galaxy to our own Milky Way. M31 dominates the small group of galaxies (of which our own Milky Way is a member), and can be seen with the naked eye as a spindle-shaped “cloud” the width of the full Moon. Like the Milky Way, M31 is a giant spiral-shaped disk of stars, with a bulbous central hub of older stars. M31 has long been known to have a bright and extremely dense grouping of a few million stars clustered at the very center of its spherical hub.

Sun and Planets

This image shows the Sun and nine planets approximately to scale. The order of these bodies are: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

Terrestrial Planets

This image shows the terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars approximately to scale. The terrestrial planets are compact, rocky, Earth - like planets.

Jovian Planets

This image shows the Jovian planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune approximately to scale. The Jovian planets are named because of their gigantic Jupiter-like appearance.

Diagram of Portrait Frames

On February 14, 1990, the cameras of Voyager 1 pointed back toward the Sun and took a series of pictures of the Sun and the planets, making the first ever “portrait” of our solar system as seen from the outside. This image is a diagram of how the frames for the solar system portrait were taken.

All Frames from the Family Portrait

This image shows the series of pictures of the Sun and the planets taken on February 14, 1990, for the solar system family portrait as seen from the outside. In the course of taking this mosaic consisting of a total of 60 frames, Voyager 1 made several images of the inner solar system from a distance of approximately 6.4 billion kilometers and about 32° above the ecliptic plane. Thirty-nine wide angle frames link together six of the planets of our solar system in this mosaic. Outermost Neptune is 30 times further from the Sun than Earth. Our Sun is seen as the bright object in the center of the circle of frames. The insets show the planets magnified many times.

Portrait of the Solar System

These six narrow-angle color images were made from the first ever “portrait” of the solar system taken by Voyager 1, which was more than 6.4 billion kilometers from Earth and about 32° above the ecliptic. Mercury is too close to the Sun to be seen. Mars was not detectable by the Voyager cameras due to scattered sunlight in the optics, and Pluto was not included in the mosaic because of its small size and distance from the Sun. These blown-up images, left to right and top to bottom are Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.